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[cangringo]

I woudn't advise the windows firewall because even though it says you can control which programs access the net it doesn't at all. I had ours set to let messenger connect along with some other programs but none could connect and the only solution was to turn it off. Zonealarm has always worked well for us.

I would also advise running windows defender and avg all the time to prevent infections. Defender seems to pick up a lot. We also have Spybot and other hijacker and trojan cleaning programs. Computing.net also has many helpful forums.

That's why I'm confused about the register 4 less thing. I have run many programs and can't find anything. I have also checked the registry and there aren't any weird keys in there related to r4l or whois. It's strange. Also it doesn't do this all the time, it's almost like a redirect when the page can't load. Our homepage hasn't changed and we can still open our pages most of the time. I've had hijackers before and they wouldn't let us open anything we wanted. I've tried doing a search and can't find anything, that's why I thought I would ask here. I shall search again. Guy, have you had this specific page before??

As for the bad virus question, no there are no good viruses but some are worse than others. Some take time to infect your system and you can easily catch and remove but others literally take over and are very difficult to remove. Sometimes they shut down your system and it's impossible to get rid of them without reformatting and yes, you lose all you info. Remember to back up all your files...I don't mean a windows back up either - I mean burn everything that is important (pictures, music, anything you can't get back easily) and save it somewhere safe.

[Justin Trullinger]

I hate windows, and am in process of switching over to linux completely. Much more stable, cheaper, and doesn't try to control your machine for you.

But in the meantime, if you're getting a browser hijack in spite of your protections, how recent are your definitions? Always something to check. Also, have you installed anything recently? And therefore permitted some registry changes? Spybot will usually stop browser hijacks by not letting them become part of the start up registry, but I've had a few sneak in when I was installing programs and hardware. (Ecuadorian internet servers are absolutely crawling.)

Best of luck,
justin

[cangringo]

Justin,

I have updated all scan programs and run spybot a few times. It has come up with two tracking cookies but as far as I know these aren't that bad...I am not sure it's hijacked but now we have weird icons in the address bar as well. Not sure if it's just a glitch or what. I have downloaded lots of stuff lately - games and such but have defender and avg running constantly. I know there's always a risk with downloading. We aren't having major problems or anything - it's just weird that register 4 less comes up occasionally. It doesn't seem to be doing it now so I don't know.

I do have hijack this but I'm not sure what's supposed to be there and what isn't - there are a few unnamed entries and I can't figure out what they're for but don't want to delete anything just in case. I have also used a registry tool to check the reg and nothing unusual. Ah well, if anything goes really wrong we can reformat.

Next time I'm thinking mac...

On that note, I think Bill Gates is a criminal...am I allowed to say that on here?

[Justin Trullinger]

I second that. Whether allowed or not.

But am really confused by his recent philanthropic endeavours...


Justin

[cangringo]

Mmmm, probably just a ploy to gain support and to avoid some postal type rage.

He's going to make a killing with Windows Vista, I'm guessing he's got his mitts into some kind of profit from sale of new computers because the one you just bought can't handle the new op system even though you bought it yesterday and it has a 500 gig hard drive.